Working experience (apprenticeship)

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Hi,
I have some questions I couldn’t find an answer.

I’m passing a Master’s Degree in Engineering of Free Softwares (apprenticeship) in France.
I plan to move to japan the next september/october.

What I don’t know is:

  • As I alternate between working into a medium sized company as a full-stack dev (usually 1 week of university and 2+ of work, this can variate) and by august I’ll have done this for 2 years, can I actually write on CV that I have 2 years of experience? (even though some of this time is passed at studying?)
    I also did nearly 7 months of internship before the apprentship, again on the same company.

  • One day, will I be able to apply to an engineer visa even though I did a Master’s Degree and not an Engineer university?

My working experiences are mainly with VueJS (QuasarFramework/Vuetify)/NETCore with really little experience on Dynamics/Sharepoint OData.
We work using the Scrum methodology, so I’m also familiar to this.

I don’t mind switching languages though (Java for exemple).

My mother tongue is Italian but I can speak French with little to no problems.
I also consider myself passable on English (written and talked).

Japanese wise I’m studying by myself and I’ll do a 1 year course next year in Tokyo.

  • Do you think I’ll be able to find a job after the 1 year course with the assets I just listed?
  • What’s the salary I should expect?

This feels like a big gamble, but I’m determined to do all that is needed to accomplish my goals.

Thanks in advance for the help o/

2

If you have a Master’s Degree in Engineering, you should be eligible for a working visa, regardless of what your undergraduate degree was.

This article has results of a survey I did regarding developer compensation, and could help you get an idea of how much you could expect to receive.

It’s impossible to say what your chances of landing a job in software development here are, as it comes down to your individual skills and ability to market yourself. However, if you have a year to land something, and make the most of it to get actively involved in the local developer community, you probably have a decent shot.

1 Like
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Thanks for the reply, I’ll try my best to use my free year to make connections!
Do you think that with my two year apprentiship experience I could aim to the 2 to 3 years experience salary shown in the article?

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Your salary will ultimately depend on what companies are willing to hire you. Still, 4 to 6 million yen is probably a realistic range for a developer just getting started in their career.